


shield of your bones

by thepointsdonotmatter



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 02:13:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepointsdonotmatter/pseuds/thepointsdonotmatter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a small fill for this <a href="http://hannibalkink.dreamwidth.org/2246.html?thread=4523718">kink meme prompt</a>: Hannibal is threatened by a suspect during apprehension and is in danger; Will jumps in and tries to protect him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shield of your bones

They are still in the thicket of the case, but nearing the end: all leads have pointed to a small house on the outskirts of the city, wracked with age and rust. Their killer, Esseker, likes to wrap his victims’ heads in cloth and strangle them, slowly. He will most likely put up a fight. But he is a butcher: he is smart but lacks finesse, and he will be outnumbered. 

It is nearly nightfall. Stars blinking and waking up in the sky. Will pulls on the hand brake and can’t stop a brief loll of his head, tinged with fatigue. He glances over.

Hannibal is looking out the window, neck bathed in the sleek outlines of the flashing red and blue lights. He seems curious, cautious. They came straight from the office per Jack’s phone call, a session cut short: he’s wearing his three-piece suit, pocket square and all. 

Will finds it strangely endearing and smiles. “All right?” he asks, the inflection barely making it a question. 

He feels he should say something more – a reassurance, maybe, but the idea of protecting Hannibal sits oddly with him, like a stab, jammed in the gaps of his ribcage. He thinks of the ozone shine of blood, undiscriminating, and shivers. Hannibal nods at him, and Will latches onto that instead, the other man’s cauterizing presence. 

Nonetheless, he ghosts a hand across his holster as they get out the car. 

Plants snake up the ground, sated from the last few days of rain, and mark the path up to the front door. Jack leads, flanked by his men, guns out. Their footsteps kick up dust. Will hangs back, hears Hannibal mirroring his steps behind him. He waits for Esseker to emerge, handcuffed, bruised and howling with anger. 

\--

Things fall apart quickly. 

The garble of noise is too loud, chaotic.

Jack is yelling – _double back, double back goddamn it_ – and Will shoots Hannibal an alarmed look. They’re outside the house, but. But if Esseker managed to leave the house (side door?), then there’s scant flesh between him and a successful escape. 

He turns his head, starts to tell Hannibal to get back to the car, and he sees a flash of movement in his peripheral vision. Blue cloth trailing through the air, ensnared in a muscled fist. The teeth next, glinting in the dusk. 

Esseker is holding a gun. It does not fit the profile. He likes to use his hands, his fingernails are perpetually crusted with blood. Will had projected, earlier, that perhaps he carries a knife, but only uses it as a last resort. But there is no time to re-route his thoughts: Esseker is not aiming the gun at him. The direction of his leer is off center, and Will immediately pulls out his own gun, the surge of emotion unexpected. He tries to maneuver himself in front of Hannibal, but Esseker tuts, pupils blown, his finger tightening on the trigger. 

“Who’s your friend?” he asks, sickeningly sweet.

Will ignores him. He wants, he _needs_ to see Hannibal, even just a strip of his suit, the organs beneath pumping life like clockwork, but he forces himself not to look. Esseker must be a fixed point in his gaze: he’s becoming unpredictable and savage in his desperation to escape. The world narrows down to the pinpricks of shadows dancing across his manic countenance.

“You switched places with your victim,” Will answers instead, stalling. 

“I’m cleverer than you thought. Now, let me go or I’ll shoot him.” He snarls it out.

Hannibal is very still next to him. Will is not arrogant: he knows he is a better shot than Esseker. He knows Esseker is fighting desperation and panic down, unsuccessfully, at this precarious fulcrum in time between his house and the woods. He knows Esseker will most certainly open fire no matter what, his idea of a punishment for this inconvenience. 

So he lunges forward, pushing Hannibal back and behind him at the same instant he shoots. The sound is deafening. A roar and a vacuum. Will gets two shots off to Esseker’s one. He feels Hannibal flinch, crouch down slightly behind him, and he keeps one arm thrown back, gripping Hannibal’s upper arm. 

Hannibal sort of takes a deep breath, a sucking inhale. But it doesn’t mean anything. People usually yell or curse when they are first hurt. Esseker falls down, he falls in a graceless heap, screaming like an animal and clutching his shoulder. No more than a couple seconds could have passed. Will’s hold on Hannibal is firm and stable and he kicks the gun away from Esseker before turning around, relief crawling into his shoulders. 

“Are you okay,” he says.

Dark red droplets hitting the ground. Rain for the plants.

Hannibal is leant forward, the arm not in enclosed in Will’s grip splayed across his stomach. 

“No,” Will says. 

Hannibal’s mouth is a crimson slash, he’s breathing heavily through his nose. He stumbles. Will catches him and lowers him down, though later he won’t remember doing it.

What he does remember is snatches of color and sound. The twang of Esseker’s shout, the clip of handcuffs. Footsteps pounding and urgent. Flashlight beams circling through the foliage. Wetness as he presses down on the wound, and Hannibal’s contained groan. Red fingers clenching, unclenching. Hannibal is tugging at him, weakly, his gaze half hitting the space next to Will’s head. Misshapen words like _just_ and _graze_ and _Will_. 

Someone grabs Will and forces him up and back; his knees jerk with the loss of solidity beneath them. A stretcher. More flashing lights, gobbling up his field of vision. He jerks away and runs after the noise. 

\--

Will's hands hurt. They creak, the skin purple and mottled. He’s in the back of the ambulance, shock blanket around him, and he doesn’t remember how he got there. 

Hannibal is here. He’s sitting on the stretcher, suit jacket shed and side heavily bandaged, but he’s awake and he’s looking at him like he already knows the question, like he’s read it and written it across the sterile walls. 

“You attacked Esseker,” Hannibal says, after a moment’s silence. 

Will gingerly touches the bandage, pushing aside his collared shirt, still unbuttoned. Hannibal lets him. 

“Will, you almost killed him.”

He thinks of Esseker’s ugly grin. He thinks of biting a trail of open-mouthed kisses up a dying Hannibal; Hannibal in a ditch, cloth wrapped tight around his head; Hannibal, a pool of red billowing out beneath his slashed body, drowning him, drowning them both—

“So?” Will says. Hisses, almost. He does not flinch away; the ache of his knuckles feels _good_. 

“So,” he repeats.

Hannibal is staring at him openly. Then he smiles. “Come here."

The kiss is surprisingly rough. Their noses bump, their teeth nipping at bottom lips. Will gently puts his hands on Hannibal’s hips, pulls him in closer. Hannibal relaxes against him. They kiss and Will can almost forget, can almost live in the now. The tang of gore and gunpowder is still _there_ in the corner of it all and yet it is not wholly unwelcome.

This feels right.


End file.
